The Dunedin Indoor Bowls Stadium has saved the national championship from embarrassment.
The final of the men's and women's fours will be held as planned tomorrow morning. The weather will determine the venue.
Heavy rain over the past two days flooded all Dunedin bowling greens and yesterday's post-section play in the fours was transferred to the Westpac Bowls Stadium.
This is the second time the stadium has come to the rescue of a national championships in Dunedin. In 1997, Gary Lawson's Composite four won the final indoors. The other members of his team were Peter Shaw, Mike Solomon and Andrew Curtain.
The first time the stadium was used for a major event was in 1995, when the finals of the pairs and triples at the Asia and Pacific Bowls were held indoors because of the rain.
It has also been used for Bowls Dunedin events when rain made it impossible to play outside.
The stadium was the vision of the late Pat O'Dea and was officially opened in 1995.
When O'Dea, a retired judge, returned to his home town in the early 1990s, he recognised the need for an indoor bowls facility in Dunedin.
It cost $2.2 million to build and would cost more than $5 million to build today.
There was opposition to the plan at the time and bowlers voted with their feet and stayed away in the early years.
Most bowlers in Dunedin now support the stadium and the Bowls Dunedin office was shifted back to the stadium late last year, when the old Otago Women's Bowling Centre clubrooms at Logan Park were sold to the Dunedin City Council.
An agreement was made with the Dunedin City Council a decade ago that helped the Stadium Trust control the debt and $850,000 was paid back to the council last August.
''We have reduced the debt to under $1 million with voluntary work over the last 10 years,'' Bruce Henry, a board member of Dunedin Lawn Bowls Stadium Incorporated, told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
The reduction of debt has been helped by the 50% of supporters who have gifted their debentures.
There remains a debt of $350,000 that is being progressively reduced.
There is a large photograph and plaque at the stadium to honour the huge contribution of Pat O'Dea to the project.
